php+pdf

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daemorhedron
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php+pdf

Post by daemorhedron »

We are looking for a solution for using php with pdf. I've used pdflib (http://www.pdflib.com/pdflib/index.html) before, and it works great, but it's for non commercial purposes. Now, I hate to cheap out, but we simply don't have $500 to blow on it, and may never have need of a commercial license. We would like to generate a certificate, which we are really giving away for free, but they might subscribe to a service to get there, so overall I would say that we need to cover ourselves and try to get one that is ok for commercial use too.

So, the question is, regardless of fees and licensing, could y'all post any of the many pdf libs that you have used? All we need it to do is display text, and maybe an image or two, so it doesn't need to be advanced at all.

Thanks, much appreciated.
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volka
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Post by volka »

then why not put it all together in an image? loading an existing image and adding some text.
for example seti@home is doing so and it's coming with no price ;)
daemorhedron
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Post by daemorhedron »

thanks, that's not a bad idea =). I think that the notion is that pdf can be trusted a little more than a simple image.
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cwcollins
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Post by cwcollins »

You could always to the "template" approach. generate the pdf offline with place holders for the text you want to put in. then do a find replace, force the download, and there you go.

probably not the best way, but maybe the fastest/simplest.

-c.w.collins
daemorhedron
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Post by daemorhedron »

Well that's the problem really, is generating the pdf file at all. I need some kind of lib to do so, and pdflib is what I am familiar with (I coded an example that works perfectly), BUT I notice that they now have this God awful banner spread across the entire page that says http://www.pdflib.com, even though they say it's free for non-commercial use. I consider that to be unusable personally. so now I pretty much need to use something other than pdflib specifically.

So still taking more suggestions for alternative libs. =)

thanks
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musashi
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Another PDF PHP library

Post by musashi »

daemorhedron,

Though I haven't used it... (dangerous to recomend, lest I be attacked if it's bad!).. you could try FastIO ClibPDF.

It has a similar license agreement as PDFLib, but it might not have any banners or ad placement. Again, I haven't tried it, but it is another alternative.

If it is good (or bad) please post on this thread so we all can find out! Thanks!
daemorhedron
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Post by daemorhedron »

Whups! Sort of left this thread unattended, sorry. Musashi, thanks for your post! I found clibpdf by looking through the php manual, but I have yet to try it. After spending some time sorting through the numerous hits from google on php and pdf, these are the ones I've got to try.

Some type of licensing involved for at least commercial use
http://www.pdflib.com/pdflib/
http://www.fastio.com/

Free and open source projects
http://www.ros.co.nz/pdf/
http://www.fpdf.org/en/home.php
http://www.stillhq.com/cgi-bin/getpage? ... =index.htm
http://www.interakt.ro/products/Yaps/

Again, I have yet to try any of them, I've been really busy. I'll try to post the results of my efforts/experiences with them.

Thanks. =)[/u]
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